George Koo responds to David Goldman

It’s not clear as to which successor generation of neoconservatives I am thinking about, but it is obvious they are not the same as yours. My first awareness of the neocons was the so called Blue Team whose raison d’etre was to promote the idea that China was the next evil empire after the collapse of USSR. During the Clinton years, the Blue Team members were largely lost among the lunatic fringe, frustrated in not being heard and quiveringly impotent.

Unfortunately for America and the world, during the George W. administration, the neocons move to the center of power. We are still paying for the deadly destruction that their ideas wreaked.

With respect to China, they proposed the steel fist of containment cloaked in vague references to strategic ambiguity so as to stymie any diplomatic advances in the bilateral relations. According to their doctrine, overwhelming China is a necessary step to achieving world hegemony.

Iraq and the Middle East is where they have done the most harm. They thought 9-11 gave them the perfect excuse to march into Iraq and take out Saddam, which they did with great dispatch. They did not think about the aftermath. They presumed that the Iraqi people would jump for joy and welcome Americans as liberators and we can then live happily ever after. Instead we are dealing with a mess in that part of the world beyond anybody’s wildest nightmare.

These geopolitical thinkers deserve a new handle. I would call them neoconpoops, an eminently appropriate contraction for neoconservative nincompoops.

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Dr George Koo recently retired from a global advisory services firm where he advised clients on their China strategies and business operations. Educated at MIT, Stevens Institute and Santa Clara University, he is the founder and former managing director of International Strategic Alliances. He is a member of the Committee of 100, and a director of New America Media.